FORKED RIVER, N.J.—Founders of New Jersey’s fledging Moderate Party vowed to file a lawsuit seeking to lift the state’s century-old ban on “fusion voting” after their petition to place a candidate already endorsed by one of the two major parties also under their banner on November’s ballot was rejected in early June.
That candidate, two-term Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), is being challenged by Republican Thomas Kean, Jr., in a rematch of their 2020 Congressional District 7 (CD 7) race decided by 5,329 votes, or less than 1 percent, in one of the nation’s most-watched elections.
In a July 6 New York Times guest essay titled “A Viable Third Party Is Coming, and It’s Starting With a New Jersey Lawsuit,” Malinowski wrote that there is momentum across the country for centrist alternatives that would “empower swing voters to save our democracy from toxic polarization” engendered by Democratic and Republican parties hijacked by extremists on the left and the right….